Intel Z77 Motherboard Review with Ivy Bridge - ASRock, ASUS, Gigabyte, and MSI
by Ian Cutress on May 7, 2012 7:40 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- MSI
- Gigabyte
- ASRock
- Asus
- Ivy Bridge
- Z77
Civilization V
Civilization V is a strategy video game that utilizes a significant number of the latest GPU features and software advances. Using the in-game benchmark, we run Civilization V at 2560x1440 with full graphical settings, similar to Ryan in his GPU testing functionality. Results reported by the benchmark are the total number of frames in sixty seconds, which we normalize to frames per second.
During AMD testing, it is clear that Civilization 5 is not GPU limited at 2560x1440 as CrossFire results are either equivalent to single card testing, or even less than (indicating overhead). The increased multi-threaded speed reduces the overhead in dual GPU mode.
Given the GTX580s are weaker cards (but still powerful), we do see a difference between single GPU and dual GPU for Civilization, with dual GTX580s beating dual 7970s. At dual GPU mode, again the ASUS and Gigabyte perform better than the other two.
Dirt 3
Dirt 3 is a rallying video game and the third in the Dirt series of the Colin McRae Rally series, developed and published by Codemasters. Using the in game benchmark, Dirt 3 is run at 1920x1080 with full graphical settings. Results are reported as the average frame rate across four runs.
Dirt3 results are very consistent across the board.
Metro2033
Metro2033 is a DX11 benchmark that challenges every system that tries to run it at any high-end settings. Developed by 4A Games and released in March 2010, we use the inbuilt DirectX 11 Frontline benchmark to test the hardware at 1920x1080 with full graphical settings. Results are given as the average frame rate from 10 runs.
Metro2033 performance seems to vary across the board, where dual GTX580s shows the greatest variation in performance between the boards. We would expect the higher multi-threaded nature of the ASUS and Gigabyte to do well, however it seems Metro2033 involves more than pure CPU speed.
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faizoff - Monday, May 7, 2012 - link
Are Q connectors proprietary of ASUS? I seem to find those only their motherboards. Love them to death.Great review. I enjoy these tremendously. Almost makes me go out and upgrade my i5 2500k.
Impulses - Monday, May 7, 2012 - link
My MSI P67A-GD55 has the same thing, unfortunately the connector block is too tall and bumps into my second 6950 so I couldn't use it.eBob - Tuesday, May 8, 2012 - link
I, too, am a fan of the Q Connector mostly for the front panel connections (power, reset, HDD light). The USB and audio connectors seem to be pretty well standardized at this point, rendering those Q Connectors redundant IMO. This would seem to be a very simple and inexpensive feature for a mobo manufacturer to have (at least for the front panel connector).bji - Monday, May 7, 2012 - link
Thank you for including this important benchmark. I hope that every motherboard review going forward will include this.The ASRock has the best time but 8 seconds is still too long. I wonder why BIOS developers can't get their act together and initialize hardware in parallel. That would surely speed POST times up tremendously.
adrianlegg - Monday, May 7, 2012 - link
I've been struggling about that issue myself. I mean - it probably was in times of BIOS, but now, with all fancy UEFI is it really that hard? (considering more resources spent on bios/uefi in mobo)Altough I'm not big fan of 200$+ motherboards, I would seriously consider buying one if it POST in 2s.
Even though there are probably POST requirements such as cpu cant be tested before ram or opposite it would be awesome to have really low boot times.
Sad when even having SSD cant give You instant full boot (not hibernations/sleeps).
It's one of those small features that are soo awesome (like reset/power buttons, and perhaps, in future : complete per component (ram/disk/SB/NB/coolers) power usage).
Nevertheless 8seconds is damn nice.
EnzoFX - Monday, May 7, 2012 - link
Does anyone know how enabling AHCI in the UEFI affect post time these days? I'd like to remove the other 7-10 seconds this adds to it.pixelstuff - Monday, May 7, 2012 - link
How do those Chromebooks shave time off of the POST? Seems like similar techniques could be implemented unless there is a good reason not to.rahvin - Tuesday, May 8, 2012 - link
Chromebooks use OpenBIOS IIRC. OpenBIOS is Linux Kernel based and boots very fast because it initializes things quicker and it's custom built to the hardware on the board. Personally I wish all the Boards would start using it and toss these BIOS down the hole of history.DanNeely - Tuesday, May 8, 2012 - link
They've got a very stripped down set of hardware to initialize. The more stuff you have on board, the longer it takes. EFI was supposed to fix this by allowing multi-threaded boot (BIOS was strictly a single threaded design); but either firmware makers aren't generally taking advantage of it yet, or dependencies in the startup process are limiting the gains.Jase89 - Sunday, May 19, 2013 - link
Don't forget the graphics card (if using discrete) will need to support UEFI (GOP) Booting too!